CBS News ran a story Thursday night declaring that if nominated and approved, Solicitor General Elena Kagan would be the “first openly gay justice.” According to Daily Intelligencer, the White House ordered CBS to remove the post and chastised the network when it initially refused to comply, noting, “The fact that they’ve chosen to become enablers of people posting lies on their site tells us where the journalistic standards of CBS are in 2010.”

According to the Huffington Post, the author of the CBS piece added an editor’s note to the offending story saying, “I have to correct my text here to say that Kagan is apparently still closeted-odd, because her female partner is rather well known in Harvard circles." Odd indeed, because the White House’s official position is that Kagan is not gay. CBS has even posted an apology validating the White House’s statement and dismissing the original reporting as being sourced in “a Harvard rumor.”Recall the is-she-or-isn't-she speculation that swirled around the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor has served almost a year on the bench, and we may still not know whether she’s gay or not. And yet, America’s lack of familiarity with Sotomayor's sexual relationships has not interfered—so far!—with her abilities to interpret the Constitution. Fancy that.